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2014 Black List of Best Unproduced Scripts: #1 'Catherine the Great'

It's that time of the year again. Along with awards season, key players in the industry also round up The Black List, a yearly rundown of the "most liked" screenplays floating around Hollywood, as voted on by development executives. Founded by Film executive Franklin Leonard in 2005, this has become quite the coveted accolade for rising writers, especially with previous films like Slumdog Millionaire, Argo, Juno and The King's Speech being named on the list. Movies on the Black List have earned 37 wins at the Oscars and nearly 200 nominations, and more than 270 of them have gone on to get produced. And now we have the list of the best (or rather most liked) unproduced screenplays going around Hollywood in 2014. More below!

Here's Top 10 Black List 2014 screenplays with the most votes (there's more than 10 listed due to ties):

1. Catherine the Great (51)Kristina Lauren Anderson
Sophia Augusta takes control of her life, her marriage, and her kingdom becoming Russia’s most celebrated and beloved monarch: Catherine the Great. (Currently set to be produced by Atlas Entertainment)

3. The Swimsuit Issue (35)Randall Green
A nerdy high schooler, who fancies himself an amateur photographer, attempts to create a “Swimsuit Issue” featuring his high school classmates in hopes of raising enough money to go to summer camp.

4. The Babysitter (34)Brian Duffield
A lonely twelve year old boy in love with his babysitter discovers some hard truths about life, love, and murder. (Currently set to be produced by Wonderland Sound and Vision)

5. Rothchild (32)John Patton Ford
A young, well-educated loner kills the members of his mother’s estranged family one-by-one in hopes that he will inherit the family’s vast fortune.

6. The Wall (30)JDwain Worrell
A sniper and his spotter must kill and avoid being killed, separated from an enemy sniper by only a 16x6ft prayer wall. (Currently set to be the first feature film produced by Amazon Studios)

7. The Cascade (25)Kieran Fitzgerald
Based on the documentary style film “The Day Britain Stopped” directed by Gabriel Range, an oil tanker collides with an Iranian patrol boat in the Strait of Hormuz, triggering a chain of tragic disastrous events. (Currently set to be produced by Scott Free Productions)

8. Aether (24)Krysty Wilson-Cairns
In near future London, a revolutionary technology has been invented that can record sounds hours after they were made. Detective Harry Orwell, inventor of this technology, is part of a pilot program where investigators record and analyze past sound waves and finds himself the prime suspect while investigating a string of brutal murders. (Currently set to be produced by Film Nation)

8. Situation Comedy (24)Cat Vasko
A young woman, feeling directionless, stumbles upon a mysterious courtyard where she is transported into a sitcom-like universe, becoming a major character on this “TV show.” (Currently set to be produced by Right of Way)

9. Tau (23)Noga Landau
A woman held captive in the futuristic smart house of a serial kidnapper realizes that her only hope of escape lies in turning the house’s sentient computer against its creator. (Currently set to be produced by Russell Ackerman and John Schoenfelder)

10. Echo (18)Chris MacBride
A CIA drone coordinator battles his own psychological health while trying to decipher whether his wife has been replaced. (Currently set to be produced by 21 Laps)

10. Mena (18)Gary Spinelli
In the late 1970s to mid 1980s, Barry Seal, a TWA pilot recruited by the CIA to provide reconnaissance on the burgeoning communist threat in Central America finds himself in charge of one of the biggest covert CIA operations in the history of the United States, one that spawned the birth of the Medellin cartel and eventually almost brought down the Reagan White House with the Iran Contra scandal. (Currently set to be produced by Imagine)

And here are some other titles that we found very intriguing from the rest of the list:

Moonfall David Weil
The investigation of a murder on a moon colony. (Currently set to be produced by Ram Bergman)

MatriarchEric Koenig
A prison psychologist has 48 hours to convince a serial killer to tell her the location of her final victim before she is executed.

The MunchkinWill Widger
A little person private eye investigates the disappearance of
a young actress in 1930s Hollywood, leading him to uncover conspiracies involving The Wizard of Oz and Metro Goldwyn Mayer brass. (Currently set to be produced by Red Wagon and Paramount Pictures)

Bird BoxEric Heisserer
A little person private eye investigates the disappearance of
A woman tries to lead her children to safety after the world is invaded by monsters who turn you insane upon sight.(Currently set to be produced by Universal Pictures and Chris Morgan)

Cartoon GirlRandall Green
When a young boy finds out that the cartoon character he’s in love with is based on a real girl, he drags his single father on a road trip to track her down.

I Am Ryan ReynoldsBilly Goulston
An inside look at the marriage, career, and mental state of 2010’s Sexiest Man Alive.

WonkaJason Micallef
A dark, reimagining of the Willy Wonka story beginning in World War II and culminating with his takeover of the chocolate factory.

Coffee & KareemShane McCarthy
An overweight, foul-mouthed nine year old reluctantly teams with the straight edge cop sleeping with his mom to take down Detroit’s most ruthless drug lord.

Each of the 70 screenplays on this 10th annual list was chosen by a group of 250 development executives, agents and other Hollywood insiders as among the year’s best un-produced scripts in a process overseen by Franklin Leonard of the official Black List website. If you want to see the full list of scripts on this year's Black List, you can find all of the titles, complete with loglines for each film, right here. In addition, those on the list were announced by various writers, directors and stars (check the videos out here). If any of these films that aren't yet being produced end up making some progress, we'll be sure to let you know.